Three and a half years after purchasing four contiguous buildings in the 1500 block of North Dearborn Parkway for roughly $10 million, Latin has announced its intention to put the properties up for sale. The school had borrowed the money to make the purchases, so they will use the sale proceeds to pay down that debt.
Latin purchased the four buildings—1505, 1507, 1511, and 1515 N. Dearborn Pkwy.—in 2022 with the primary intention of expanding and upgrading the Lower School facilities. At the time, the Board of Trustees and senior administration felt that owning additional buildings on the same block as the Lower School would provide opportunities to upgrade the school’s facilities, but they never settled on a specific plan for the new properties.
Instead, the announcement this November that the Board of Trustees had voted to sell the properties marks the first concrete decision posted about Latin’s intentions for the buildings.
The actual sale, however, has not yet occurred, and Board Chair Dara Milner said that Latin has not even selected a realtor.
According to Ms. Milner, the Dearborn purchases were financed with debt, meaning the school essentially doesn’t have equity in the properties unless they have risen in value, so selling them will go toward paying back what was borrowed.
“The transactions will remove debt from the balance sheet, and there will not be proceeds for the school,” Ms. Milner said.
According to the Cook County Assessor’s office, as well as realtor Natasha Motev, a former Latin parent, the combined properties 1511 and 1515 N. Dearborn Pkwy sold for a significantly lower price less than a year before Latin purchased these homes. Latin appears to have paid twice as much for these properties as their previous sale price.
“I do believe Latin paid a premium for the properties, and I’m not certain they’ll recover the full amount, but I am hopeful they do,” Ms. Motev said.
In a recent email, the Board outlined its thinking behind the original purchases. “The Board made a commitment to improve the facilities for the Lower School,” the email said. “The Board and school analyzed numerous options through a facilities master planning process and also took advantage of the unexpected opportunity to buy the Dearborn properties.”
Community members shared their reactions to the decision.
“I think that if [Latin] had been able to do construction and create new classrooms for the Lower School, it would have been totally worth it,” said Sarah Kutschke, an Upper School biology teacher and Lower School parent. “It seems a bit inefficient that [the buildings] were just sitting there for three years, though.”
Latin has collected rent from some of the properties, but that income hasn’t fully covered the costs, which include not only the expenses of owning the buildings but also the debt payments for the borrowed funds.
In the same email, the Board noted that a major construction project for the Lower School would have resulted in “several years of relocation and disruption for the community,” a factor that informed their decision to sell the properties.
Ms. Kutschke offered her view on the sale and the buildings themselves. “Those buildings are great; I hope they are never ruined,” Ms. Kutschke said. “If Latin can’t do anything with them, I just hope [the selling of these properties is] a good, profitable sale.”